Xenophobia: 640 Nigerians ready to return – NIDCOM

The Chairman, Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NIDCOM), Mrs Abike Dabiri-Erewa, has disclosed that 640 Nigerians in South Africa have voluntarily registered to return home following the xenophobic attacks in the country.

Dabiri-Erewa, who disclosed this after a closed door meeting with the Senate Committee on Diaspora and non-governmental organisations in Abuja on Monday, said that the volunteers would arrive in Nigeria in a couple of days.

“ As I speak with you now, we have 640 Nigerians voluntarily registered to come to Nigeria and they will be home in a couple of days, and we believe that more will still be coming to register.

“Right now, we have 640, that means two planes will convey them home , now the envoy will be briefing the president and with everything in place, the president will be taking a few more decisions after the briefing,” she said.

She said Federal Government had pledged that any Nigerian that wanted to return would be given the required support

She said that the returnees would be encouraged to enroll and participate the various social intervention programmes of the government.

“ We will encourage them to enrol in small scale entrepreneurial programme with the Bank of Industry with the social investment programme , so there are things that they can do’’, she said.

He said NIDCOM had assured the committee that the strategic objectives effort of Nigerian government on tackling the matter was still in focus.

According to him, the objectives, among others was to ensure that South African government lives to its responsibility of protecting life and propertiy prosecutions of culprits and payment of compensations to affected Nigerians.